


La Douleur Exquise

by dreamofhorses, lookingforatardis



Category: Actor RPF, Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst, Confessions, Distance, M/M, More angst, even though we probably should, the authors regret nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-02
Packaged: 2019-10-02 09:23:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17261675
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamofhorses/pseuds/dreamofhorses, https://archiveofourown.org/users/lookingforatardis/pseuds/lookingforatardis
Summary: It's Christmas day and all the movies on at the Chamber's residence are set in New York City. Armie gets unbearably nostalgic and reaches out to Timmy, knowing there will be no response (time difference) but needing some form on connection, nevertheless.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is... a monster. Part two will be up tomorrow. The only reason there are two parts is it's really heavy (both parts) and we needed some sort of break. It shifts POV so you get inside both of their heads! I wrote one side, Brooke wrote the other.

**-ARMIE-**

 

The excitement was dying down from the morning's earlier enthusiasm spurred on by children's hopeful eyes and a sense of purpose. The presents had been opened, wrapping paper discarded and already cleared from the floor. Armie watches the kids gather around a particularly interesting toy, each of them talking animatedly while food preparations continue in the kitchen. It's nearly time for dinner, an ordeal in the Chamber home, and he psyches himself up for the hours of conversation that will shift the focus from the kids to the everyday lives of the adults to catch up. He'd logged hours of it already in Elizabeth's absence; he wasn’t sure what else there was to tell.

Somewhere along the line, the kids begged for Christmas movies. A compromise was to put some on with the volume low for background noise (though, God knows they didn't need it). He'd glance up from time to time and smile at whatever was on, memories from showing the movie to his kids or even from his own childhood flooding him. By the time they're ready for dinner, though, it's been hours and one commonality begins emerging--

"You ever wonder why all the movies are set in New York?" he asks Elizabeth's brother, eyes switching from the screen to his face.

"What?" he laughs. "No, I haven't man."

"Ah, forget it," Armie shakes his head. "I guess I just never realized a lot of them are in New York. It's not important." Joseph changes the subject and Armie doesn't push it, but his mind is effectively preoccupied. It was probably still snow covered in the city. He was just there not long ago and the feel of the city lingers on him, almost close enough to touch.

He pulls his phone out of his pocket half a dozen times before rolling his eyes at himself and opening Timmy's contact.

_5:35pm MST / 1:35am CET_

_AH: Why are so many Christmas movies in New York?_

He thumbs through social media for a minute before glancing around the room, his phone tapping against his palm. They start gathering for dinner, the kids being torn from their toys to move towards the dining room table. He glances back down at his phone, the blaring silence of it furrowing his brows. He turns it to vibrate and throws it in his pocket, but not before tapping out another text. He almost mentions how much he misses the city, but decides to wait. WIthout any idea of what state of mind Timmy will be in, Armie plays it safe, decides to use Timmy’s response as a gauge for how to proceed as he often does.

_5:40pm MST / 1:40am CET_

_AH: Kids have been watching them all day and everything is in New York. It's like I can't escape_ 😂

He joins the family and begins eating, his mind drifting as they talk. He’d seen Timmy the last time he was in New York and they’d talked about the holidays, how mystical everything looked in the city at that time of year. Timmy told him about their traditions and confessed he wasn’t going to be in the country this year. _“Paris at Christmas. I’ve been missing it so much anyway, and Pauline you know,”_ he’d said. Armie remembers wishing they could go see the city all decked out together just for the hell of it and having to reign himself in, knowing it was the worst idea he could possibly have. _Think of the PR_ , he could practically hear his agent saying. The TV in the other room is still on, Home Alone 2 on quietly. He remembers the movie coming out and telling his parents one day he’d live there and be an actor. He remembers the first time he went to New York on his own and being charmed, remembers the times he’d gone and seen TImmy over the past few years, remembers living there himself for a few brief months. He’d done it, he realizes now. He lived that dream.

He checks his phone, once, twice, three times before he excuses himself with a kiss on Elizabeth’s cheek under the ruse of grabbing more wine. He stares at his phone around the corner, almost as if willing it to blink with a new message. He doesn’t quite understand.

And then it clicks— the time difference. He counts on his fingers the eight hours he knows it is to Paris and feels his body collapse against the wall, only briefly. _Of course_ , he thinks. He debates whether or not to send another text or admit defeat and wait until Timmy wakes up, but instead finds he can only stare at Timmy’s contact and remember the last time he saw him. “You need help there?” Elizabeth’s dad asks, walking up behind him. He composes himself and smiles at him with a slight shake of his head, his hand slipping into his pocket, the picture of ease. “If you need help picking wine, just say something, son,” he smiles.

Armie nods sheepishly to appease him and corrals him into the kitchen. “I was just shooting out a quick text and got distracted. I’d love your expertise though!” He waits until the older man is talking about wine to pull his phone back out, his eyes skirting up quickly before back down to the keyboard.

_6:20pm MST / 2:20am CET_

_AH: I don’t know why I can’t stop thinking about the city today. And the city makes me think about you, so I apologize for the triple texting. No one here cares as much as you._

“Armie, are you coming?” Startled, Armie looks up and stuffs his phone in his pocket. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, of course. Just finishing some business, nothing to worry about, come on,” Armie smiles, motioning to the dining room. He asks about the wine to distract himself from the knowledge that his texts will go unanswered until Timmy wakes up.

When the dishes are being cleared, he helps carry the kids upstairs to the guest room they’re staying in. Having woken up _before_ the ass crack of dawn and never taking a nap, they were exhausted already and he wasn’t about to stop them from going to bed. His phone vibrates and he takes it out of his pocket quickly, his eyes scanning his notifications, heart in his throat. It’s an email, his eyes slipping shut as his body seizes and relaxes, returns to its normal state.

He helps put the kids to bed with a heavy heart and tells Elizabeth he isn’t feeling well. She rests her hand on his forehead but knows he isn’t warm. She asks if he’s just trying to get out of more socializing, and feeling as though this may be his only out, he tells her it’s just been a long day. _“As much as I love your family…”_ She let him off the hook, perhaps sensing he wouldn’t be any fun anyway.

Alone, he pours himself a glass of whiskey and wanders towards the study to sit quietly with his thoughts. He pulls his phone back out of his pocket and stares at his conversation with Timmy. Scrolling up, he sees the picture Timmy took of them in his apartment before Armie left the city most recently, Timmy’s hand on the top of Armie’s freshly buzzed head with a smile on his face. Armie stares at it a moment and takes a sip of his whiskey, his mind drifting.

He hadn’t had much time with him this time around. Between press and Timmy’s schedule growing crazier by the day, they barely had any time to say hello. Timmy had made it to his hotel in the middle of the night just to make sure they didn’t completely miss each other, and then insisted the next day after Armie’s stunt with his hair that he visit _immediately._ Their friendship had changed too many times to count, but some things remained the same through it all — how desperate they were to find each other when they were in the same city, and how effortless it was each time they reunited to find their rhythm, to fall right back into their patterns.  

Armie struggles to think of the city without Timmy in it despite living there for months without him. Even then, he was on the phone with him giving him pointers so often Timmy might as well have been by his side. Picturing him in Paris leaves Armie wondering if he’d ever travel with him again, a thought that shouldn’t send him reeling by any means but does nevertheless.

_7:50pm MST / 3:50am CET_

_AH: Fuck man. I have to be honest. I’m kind of missing you tonight._

Armie stares at the phone, counts the hours again, and hits send. He bites the corner of his thumb nail and stares at the screen, his heart picking up pace in his chest. He knows there won’t be a response, but he stares at the screen and knows it’ll be there when he wakes up, unavoidable, a confession meant for no one and everyone. He takes another drink, the whiskey warming his throat on the way down. He picks up his phone with a resigned sigh.

_7:52pm MST / 3:52am CET_

_AH: I’m in E’s dad’s library, it’s a lot more stoic than Luca’s._

_AH:I didn’t realize how much I missed you until right now. You’re probably sleeping._

He stares at the books lining the walls and wonders if anyone in the house has actually read them, feels guilty for questioning them. His glass is empty suddenly, and he looks back at his phone. Something makes him pick it up again, open it, look at the messages unanswered. It doesn’t really feel real that he’s hit send on any of them. Timmy texts him quickly unless he’s working, rarely does he have to wait very long. He stays up late and sometimes is even already awake when Armie is texting him, drunk, from LA. This isn’t common, him having to wait. It’s almost as if Timmy won’t ever see the texts, as if Armie can excuse anything he says.

It doesn’t feel real.

_8:02pm MST / 4:02am CET_

_AH: Do you ever feel like everything is falling apart, but you’re just standing there watching? I feel like that here. I don’t feel like that when I’m visitng you?_

 

He stares at the screen after hitting send and feels a smile creep up on his face. There’s something oddly satisfying about saying things without expecting a response, he realizes. He pulls up a picture of them from years ago, way back in Italy, and smiles at the memories attached.

_8:05pm MST / 4:05am CET_

_AH: You're the only person I really talk to. Everything else is white noise. I can cancel everything out except you. You'll be there when I close my eyes no matter what I do._

It’s immediately intoxicating, the high he gets from saying something so true that he feared he’d never speak into existence. He hears laughter from down the hall but doesn’t care, he doesn’t care about anything but this moment right here. He gets bold, searching his heart for the words he’s been holding back, wondering if the feeling of relief will extend to every text or just the one.

_8:07pm MST / 4:07am CET_

_AH: Everything is off this year. I saw you too soon to the holidays I think. I don't think I'd be thinking about you this much if I hadn't. And you're just gone and we couldn't talk today. I'm sitting alone in this fucking library where I asked if I could marry Elizabeth and I just keep thinking about that time you stood on my feet in Crema and wouldn't stop laughing because I was tickling you on accident_

His heart races as he stares at the words, sees the confirmation it’s sent. It’s barely gone through before he’s typing again, his eyes tearing up at the wave of emotion he feels finally saying this, even if Timmy won’t see. What’s the worst that could happen? He could wake up tomorrow and blame it on booze, despite not being nearly drunk enough for it to matter.

_8:08pm MST / 4:08am CET_

_AH: And I’m an idiot because it’s always been there and I’ve always just ignored it because that would be easier but you’re not easier and you never will be_

_AH: Except talking is easier with you. And just existing. Fuck_

Armie hits send without really meaning to, his fingers acting too quickly for him before he’s even finished his thought. He leans back in the chair and stares at the ceiling momentarily while he catches his breath.

_8:10pm MST / 4:10am CET_

_AH: you were never part of the plan._

Armie stares at the words he’s sent off into the airspace, his heart clenching at the honesty. Why is it so much easier to tell him all of this now? Why not in person? Knowing Timmy can’t interrupt, or rather won’t, gives him confidence and clarity.

_8:11pm MST / 4:11am CET_

_AH: I was supposed to do the movie and move the fuck on and instead you’re just there in everything I ever do. Even when you’re not there you are because I can’t stop thinking about you even now. You make everything so complicated_

_AH: but you make everything make sense. Nothing is right without you in my life, I don’t even know what that would look like anymore. I don’t want to know what it would look like_

Armie feels his heart beating quickly in his chest, the rhythm echoed in how he types with his fingers, mind racing. There are a million things he’s never said, a million more he never thought he _would_ say. So many moments he stared into Timmy’s eyes and suppressed some urge in himself to act on a feeling he couldn’t really explain, or rather, didn’t want to. He imagines Timmy sleeping in a bed that is not his, cool Parisian air surrounding him. When they were in Paris together, Timmy had made a joke about Casablanca and Armie couldn’t forget the way he smirked and leaned against his shoulder before playing it off. They wouldn’t have Paris, though. It wasn’t theirs to take, not then.

_8:13pm MST / 4:13am CET_

_AH: Do you even know what you mean to me?_

Armie wonders if it’s enough. He sits for a moment and closes his eyes, his heart clenched in his chest tightly around the words he can’t quite bring himself to say. He doesn’t know what his goal is here, what he truly wishes to accomplish with any of this. Perhaps there isn’t a goal at all, perhaps he’s saying things to say them, because he _means_ them, because they deserve to be said.

_8:14pm MST / 4:14am CET_

_AH: Sometimes I don’t even know. I think I do and then something happens and I realize I didn’t know at all. God I wish you weren’t so far away. I wish I wasn’t such a coward around you_

_AH: you know right? You must know_

Armie stares at his words, surprising himself not for the first time tonight as the things he’s kept buried deep down in his chest emerge in writing before him. He almost forgets he’s sent them as texts, _almost._ For a moment, staring at all of them makes him think they’re a note in his phone, something to be erased in the light of day, never to be spoken of again. He begins doubting himself as he scrolls, realizing the sheer quantity of texts he’s sent.

His stomach turns and he fears he may be sick, the words he swore to himself never to put on Timmy staring at him like accusations. Seconds might as well be ticks to a bomb, his hands shaking as he reads and rereads unanswered words. _Idiot,_ he thinks, his eyes stuck on his vulnerability. What did he expect with all of this? That Timmy would wake up, see his frantic musings and, what? _What?_ He asks himself over and over again but comes up short. The truth is, he just needed to say it, just once. He couldn’t let another holiday pass and wonder what it would be like to spend it with Timmy. He just couldn’t.

Head in his hands, he feels the weight of what he’s done fall on him, no longer easing a burden but creating one. With frustrated tears in his eyes, he stares blankly at the darkness of his screen in the moments before it vibrates and lights up. Immediately, he jolts forward at attention, his hands lifting the phone, eyes wide. He squeezes his eyes shut to make sure he’s not seeing things and feels the texts coming through quickly, his heart racing as he opens his phone and stares at them as they come through.

**-TIMMY-**

 

It's a scooter accident on Rue Montmartre that wakes Timmy up: the slurred shouts, metal scraping away down an alley, and then he realizes he's parched from leaving the window open to the cold night air. He opens the fridge, looks for a mischievous moment at a half-full carafe of Bordeaux, but makes the adult choice and reaches for the pitcher of water. _The adult choice_. Not even something he'd considered in his life before the past few months, but now it hovers just out of his mind’s eye, a shadow of decisions he'd never known he'd have to make.

He means to check his phone to kill time, two minutes while he sips water in the kitchen, get rid of the blinking light that will keep him awake if he doesn't clear his notifications, but then he sees that he has 6 text messages and unlocks the phone immediately in case something has happened to Pauline, to his mom. This is the first year he'd insisted on his own place during the holidays, just to clear his head, and what if that's backfired, he opens the app and-- _Armie_.

Timmy scrolls back through their conversation to find the beginning of the text barrage. He accidentally goes too far, sees the picture of Armie with his freshly shaved head, remembers how rushed and crazy it was to see Armie in fragments, downtime, stolen moments between their respective shit in New York a couple of weeks ago. The new texts start about two and a half hours earlier, innocuously, asking about Christmas movies in New York, Armie realizing partway through that it’s eight hours later in Paris. _No one here cares as much as you_. Timmy would bet Armie didn’t think about just how true that was when he typed it. _I’m kind of missing you tonight_. Timmy can smell the whiskey in the words through his screen. Words he knew Armie always meant, but would always need whiskey to say.

After he reads the most recent text Timmy can no longer tell whether his goosebumps come from the open balcony door or from what he's just read. _You’re probably sleeping._ Timmy looks at a clock. The message was sent eight minutes ago, probably just as Timmy was opening his eyes in a room already filled with unsaid words. A finger of dawn starts to glow at the edges of his windows and illuminates a pack of Gauloises hidden behind a planter on the balcony, a souvenir from a drunken evening at Le Zorba the previous week that it felt wasteful to throw away. Timmy rarely smokes anymore, never did much anyway, dulls the senses, but suddenly he’s forgotten all his old reasons not to. He pulls on sweatpants and a ratty soccer shirt with a hole in one sleeve, fishes a lighter from the bedside table and sneaks onto the balcony with a mincing step, sweeping his foot in an arc before him so he doesn’t trip in the dim light of the newborn dawn.

The night is cold, only a few degrees above freezing probably, and the air smells like future snow. The cigarette smoke is warmer than the balcony Timmy leans on, warmer than the street air against his earlobes, warmer than the worry that’s slowly spreading through his chest in a combination of chilly dread and an excited heat that he mistrusts. So he smokes more, inhales deeply, holds it in his lungs. _He misses me_. There was a time when that would have been enough. Timmy hates himself for mistrusting that feeling now, that pure adolescent excitement at just knowing he occupied a small corner of Armie’s brain, back before Timmy had ever imagined more. Before he’d ever thought _what if we kissed, but as ourselves_ , before he’d started letting his hands linger too long on Armie’s body when they’d split a bottle of wine and wrestle on the couch. Timmy pulls his phone from the pocket of his sweatpants, opens the texts. His finger hovers over the keyboard, makes the motion, sweeping, fluid, that would spell out _I miss you too_. But he doesn’t type it. He locks the screen, throws the phone back in his pocket. He’ll see if Armie sobers up, comes to his senses, or if this is what it looks like: the night when Timmy will say something he’d only allowed himself to think for the first time a few short months ago. He knows exactly where he wants to go to wait it out.

Inside, he grabs some socks, boring white ones, and wears them inside his sweatpants with a plain pair of ratty Converse. There’s a heathered blue Hanes hoodie on the back of a chair that will do nicely over his soccer shirt. It's easier to hide when you’ve made a name even wearing your socks in a quirky way, he’s discovered. If you dress like a random American tourist who thinks gym clothes are acceptable in public, no one will even look twice to see if the freshly grown curls peeking out of your hood should look familiar.

The Forum des Halles is utterly deserted at this time of day, the shops still sleeping and shuttered. Timmy walks a lap around the circular formation that has been there for a thousand years, housing some configuration of people selling food, clothing, entertainment, and stops in front of one featureless, blank glass wall. He hopes no gendarmes happen by, because explaining what he’s doing there, in front of that particular wall of a closed shopping mall at dawn, would be a tricky thing. _You see, officer, a couple of years ago I filmed a movie, and I fell in love with my costar, except I didn’t quite know what love was yet and I thought everyone in the world would look that special to me always. And this is the place where we first showed the movie to people in the country that shaped half of me, and I didn’t think it would matter but it **did** , and I played with my hair too much and he could tell I was nervous and halfway through the movie we snuck out to the bathroom and he just held my head against his chest in a stall and we breathed together. And after that I felt like I could do anything. And here I am again, but this is just a wall, just glass, you can’t project anything onto it, not your feelings and certainly not the past._

Yeah, no cop in the world would buy that.

Timmy closes his eyes, squeezes them shut against the brightening dawn, and suddenly Armie is there, in his warm giant sweater that Timmy tried on once when they were drinking, pranced around in and then fell asleep on the couch, didn’t even need a blanket with a sweater that big, and when he woke up in the morning Armie had left a note in his gorgeous script, _Went for bagels. Didn’t have the heart to wake you_. When he opens his eyes again he can see Armie ahead of him on the escalator, waving his middle fingers, Elizabeth slapping them down but not before he’d caught Timmy’s eye and seen him laugh at the prank. That had seemed to be enough. Timmy reaches into his pocket, _hmmm it seems I brought the cigarettes with me, fancy that_ , and when he pulls his hand out of his pocket his phone’s in it also and the notification light is going like crazy. _I knew I mean to take it off silent when I left the house_ , Timmy swears inwardly, and chews on his lower lip as he unlocks the screen.

Seven more messages. _Like everything is falling apart, but you’re standing there watching_. Like the way Timmy still hasn’t unpacked his bags in his Paris apartment, because something in him says if he stays ready to go to Armie then that will make Armie want him to come. Yeah, you could say this is a feeling he understands. _You’ll be there when I close my eyes_. Timmy tests it, although he knows the answer. The answer hasn’t changed in almost three years. Yep, Armie’s still there, right now in his sweater from their premiere but sometimes in a T-shirt, barking orders playfully in the kitchen. Sometimes standing a little too close when handing Timmy a joint; sometimes nudging Timmy with his foot on an airplane when he can tell Timmy’s nerves have gotten really bad; and once, only once, asleep on Timmy’s floor after a night of drinking, sunlight moving across his face as if discovering it for the first time, and Timmy sat for a full hour and watched him sleep in the November light. Yeah, that’s there when he closes his eyes. It’s never left.

_You were never part of the plan._ Something in Timmy snaps at that message; he starts to form a reply that’s hasty and indignant, when another comes right on its heels. _I don’t want to know what it would look like_. It’s a sentence that could have come from Timmy’s own lips. He wants to respond right away, wants to scream _you don’t have to, let’s never imagine it, no one ever has to see that, let’s bury it along with all the lives we could have lived where we never knew each other._

The shadow in the corner of his mind, the one that wants him to make the _adult choice_ , blooms fully across his vision. The Parisian sunlight somehow dims even though it’s growing later and lighter by the minute. Armie’s a married man, his life has been built and settled, what right does Timmy have to mess all that up for him, ask him to throw it aside? Sure, Armie’s the love of Timmy’s life, he knows it somehow, feels it in his bones, but how can he be sure Armie feels the same? Wouldn’t the joke be on them both if this only looked good to Armie until he got out of his marriage, and then his sudden freedom might be intoxicating, be something he’s reluctant to give up again now that he’s won it?

Timmy throws his cigarette to the ground, starts the walk back to his apartment. _But then again, doing the “right thing” got Armie into this situation in the first place. I’m supposed to be so open, so accessible, even to do what I do for a living. Yet I’m going to keep something from the first person in my life that I’ve chosen? I’m going to let him put himself out there, which took god knows what combination of alcohol and frustration and love, and let him think he’s talking into a void? That I don’t wake up sometimes with his name on my lips and let myself dream?_

When Timmy is back in his room, sunbeams slanting across his bed in the fullness of the new morning, he checks his phone one last time before responding and sees two final messages that only convince him further that what he’s doing is right. _You must know_. And he hadn’t known before then, had only hoped and dared to dream, but once he hears it from Armie himself Timmy presses his finger to the keys, no practice, no rehearsals, and responds.

 

_4:21 AM CET/8:21 PM MST_

_TC: so, surprise. I’m not sleeping._

_TC: I um. I don’t know for sure what I mean to you_

_TC: but if you’re saying what I think you are, then you’re not being a coward at all_

_TC: and what I think you’re saying is that I mean as much to you as you do to me_

 

Timmy takes a breath, ragged from the unexpected smoking, and notices that his fingers are trembling now that he’s stopped typing. But even before Armie has a chance to respond, he sends two more texts in quick succession, texts his _adult choice_ superego would definitely not approve of.

 

_4:23 AM CET/8:23 PM MST_

_TC: and if that’s not what you’re saying, can we please forget this and pretend I was drunk_

_TC: but...I hope it is what you’re saying_

 

He stares for a moment at the screen, knowing now how Armie must have felt over the past half hour, wanting a response but not just any response, _if it’s not the one I want to hear then keep it, seal it up and let me stare at this blank box forever and hope._ Then the screen lights up, a FaceTime call, and suddenly Timmy doesn’t care that he’s in his worn out soccer shirt and hasn’t washed his hair, that Armie will give him no end of shit for the takeout boxes cluttering the baseboard, and he accepts immediately.

 Armie’s face looms out of the darkness, suddenly the brightest thing in Timmy’s vision, and he adjusts the phone a little until he’s gleaming like the literal sun. “Hey,” Armie mutters, and Timmy hears the whiskey in his voice. “Fuck, my heart is racing.”

“Mine too,” Timmy whispers back, knowing Armie will be able to tell he’s been smoking, knowing Armie will know what that means this early in the day. “I...I’m missing you. A lot. Too. I was just at Les Halles.”

Armie sighs, a long exhale, realizing what that means. “God, we were such fucking _children_ then.”

“It was just this year, Armie. It wasn’t even that long ago.” Timmy giggles in spite of himself.

“Doesn’t mean we weren’t children. Doesn’t mean we didn’t think things then and get too cowardly to say them.” Armie shifts nervously, deploys one of the megawatt grins he throws at people when he’s nervous.

“I said them. Some of them. Sometimes.” Timmy can feel himself blushing, hopes the cell phone connection will cover it up but knows it won’t. “I told the whole world they should fall in love with you.”

“Yeah, but the whole world didn’t. I told everyone they should fall in love with you too and then they went and did it.” Armie’s eyes go distant and fond and for the first time Timmy feels the distance between them, exactly how far he would have to reach in order to touch.

“Well I--” Timmy inhales, hides the catch in his breath that’s suddenly not from smoking, “ _I_ fell in love with you.” There. There it is. He’s said it.

“Tim--” Armie’s voice breaks, and for the first time he doesn’t hide it or blame it on whiskey. He sits up a little straighter so he can face the camera dead-on. “Tim, I fell in love with you too. I don’t even know if I knew it before now and was afraid to say it, or if I called it something else.” His mouth quirks into a crooked grin. “But I was watching those movies, in the snow in Denver with all the people who were supposed to care most about me, and all I could think was how it would be if I was walking in the snow. In New York. With you. And now I can’t want anything else, I already see you in my past and now I can only see my future with you in it. I just--” The words have been coming out in a tumble like a waterfall over boulders and then they crash to a stop. “I wish I could hold you right now.”

“God, Armie.” Timmy’s crying now, he knows it and doesn’t care, later Armie will probably praise his emotional openness or something but right now all it means is _you matter_. “I want that too. I want all of it, I have all along, I thought this was something I could find again but I can’t. I’ve tried and nothing ever clicks like it did with you. It’s like I’m trying to force a key into the wrong lock. I want Christmases and birthdays and--”

“Dinners with your family in New York!” Armie breaks in. He’s always loved Timmy’s family, and as for food, well, that’s a foregone conclusion.

“Driving Harper to school!” Timmy has always loved the kids, and the thought of being able to publicly hold them, tease them, take them to playgrounds is almost too much. Timmy almost starts crying before remembering that he already is.

“Netflix and chill.” Armie pivots the subject with a teasing, mischievous smile.

“God, Armie, how many seconds does it take you to get back to your favorite subjects?” Timmy’s chest feels made of helium. He can barely get the sentences out without giggling.

“Too many. Too many seconds. Because now you’re my favorite subject and you’re too far away.” Armie flops back onto his back, Timmy loses sight of his face for a moment, and when he returns to view he looks ten years younger. _Younger than when he was Oliver_ , Timmy thinks for a moment. _He means it. This is all he wants._

“I love you.” Timmy says. It’s all Armie’s beautiful, open face deserves, and the words are out of his mouth before he realizes this is the first time he’s _really_ said them to Armie, in the way that he’s always meant them but been too careful to say.

“I love you.” There’s a certainty in Armie’s voice that Timmy’s only heard a few times, that warms his stomach and makes something tighten in Timmy’s chest. “I fucking love you, Tim. I’ve needed this my whole life. Needed _you_.”

Timmy settles onto his side on the bed, sees Armie do the same. He reaches absently for the phone, as if they’re side by side in the same room, needing to close only a space of inches to touch each other. His hand meets only the empty air beyond his phone screen. “So, god, Armie.” Timmy knows there’s something gnawing at the back of his mind, something he needs to ask, but he just wants to stay in bed watching Armie grin at him like that forever. “What does all this mean? I love you. You love me. What do we do now?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so like I said last chapter, I wrote one side of this and Brooke wrote the other. So we kind of wrote it in pieces, but wanted to give both sides to this story. So to start, you're getting Armie's POV again with the rest of the FaceTime call, then you'll get Timmy's POV.....

-ARMIE-

_8:21 PM MST / 4:21 AM CET_

_TC: so, surprise. I’m not sleeping._

_TC: I um. I don’t know for sure what I mean to you_

_TC: but if you’re saying what I think you are, then you’re not being a coward at all_

_TC: and what I think you’re saying is that I mean as much to you as you do to me_

Armie’s eyes close, his hands lifting his phone to his forehead in some mock prayer. He can’t stop himself now, the emotion taking over. The initial surprise gives way to relief, to love, to a subtle ache in his chest at the distance between them. His limbs feel lighter as he lowers his hand to look at the messages again, his eyes slipping shut once more to stop the tears that have begun gathering from spilling. When he opens them, new texts emerge.

_8:23 PM MST / 4:23 AM CET_

_TC: and if that’s not what you’re saying, can we please forget this and pretend I was drunk_

_TC: but...I hope it is what you’re saying_

A tug pulls at Armie’s heart when he realizes Timmy is still holding out for him, waiting with bated breath for some acknowledgement of what he’s said. As seems to be the theme for the evening, Armie doesn’t hesitate, or really even think it through, when he FaceTime’s Timmy, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand while it rings. _Pick up, I need to see you_ , he thinks, his heart lurching in his chest. _He loves me. It wasn’t in my head, he loves me._

The screen goes black for a moment before Timmy’s face appears. Armie sighs, his head falling back against his chair with a smile. “Hey,” he whispers, remembering where he is suddenly. “Fuck, my heart is racing,” he breathes, his hand lifting to rest over his chest as he shifts to better light his face for Timmy.

 _“Mine too. I… I’m missing you. A lot. Too. I was just at Les Halles.”_ His voice, normally dripping like honey, sounds rough around the edges to Armie now. _He’s been smoking;_ Armie fights a small smile and opts for a sigh instead, memory filling him.  “God, we were such fucking children then,” he says, and he means it. He’s grown so much, felt so much, in the time that’s passed.

 _“It was just this year, Armie. It wasn’t even that long ago_.” How could it have been only this year, Armie wonders. Those interviews they did there made him more sure of his heart than any others, Timmy whispering translations in his ear when they met people, taking charge of conversations like they were free samples. He thinks of how far they’d come since then; they’d been through so much, built on distance and the airwaves to create something lasting. “Doesn’t mean we weren’t children,” he tells Timmy. “Doesn’t mean we didn’t think things then and get too cowardly to say them.” How different would their lives be if they’d acted on this at the start of the year? Can he even picture that life, or is it trapped somewhere in a parallel life only?

 _“I said them. Some of them. Sometimes.”_ Armie watches as Timmy’s cheeks turn a light shade of pink and remembers all the interviews he’d rewatched countless times just to hear Timmy say he loved him. Yes, he thinks. You did. _“I told the whole world they should fall in love with you.”_

“Yeah, but the whole world didn’t.” Armie doesn’t mean for it to sound bitter, but he fears it might. “I told everyone they should fall in love with you too and then they went and did it,” he adds. He couldn’t blame anyone, after all. He’d fallen harder than them all.

 _“Well I— I fell in love with you.”_ Armie’s heart stops.

“Tim,” he sighs, his voice betraying him as it often did these days. How many days had he wished he could hear those words directed so plainly at him? “Tim, I fell in love with you, too. I don’t even know if I knew it before now and was afraid to say it, or if I called it something else.” He’d spent nights awake wondering if this was love or some other form of longing he’d never experienced before, never quite knowing. He knew now, more than ever. “But I was watching those movies, in the snow in Denver with all the people who were supposed to care most about me, and all I could think was how it would be if I was walking in the snow. In New York. With you. And now I can’t want anything else, I already see you in my past and now I can only see my future with you in it. I just—” He pauses, takes a breath. In a conversations concerned with permanence, he feels awfully temporary in what he says. Perhaps it’s the distance that sneaks between them like ivy that makes him feel as though nothing he says will ever be enough. “I wish I could hold you right now,” he says, realizing all he really needs is their bodies close together once again. Then it would feel real, he thinks.

 _“God, Armie,_ ” Timmy says, tears flowing from his eyes. Armie wants to push them aside, gets frustrated that he can’t, bites his lip. _“I want that, too. I want all of it, I have all along, I thought this was something I could find again but I can’t. I’ve tried and nothing ever clicks like it did with you. It’s like I’m trying to force a key into the wrong lock.”_ Armie couldn’t have put it better. This feels different, important in a _new_ way he’s not sure he’s ever known. _“I want Christmases and birthdays and—”_

“DInners with your family in New York,” Armie says, smiling, his heart swelling up at the thought.

_“Driving Harper to school!”_

“Netflix and chill,” Armie smirks, his mind all over the place and yet settled on one thing only: Timmy.

 _“God, Armie, how many seconds does it take you to get back to your favorite subjects?”_ Armie can see him trying not to laugh and wishes he wouldn’t try so fucking hard.

“Too many. Too many seconds,” he says, softening. “Because now you’re my favorite subject and you’re too far away.” The words shock even Armie, the plain honesty creeping up on him. He flops down and lowers the phone to hide for a moment, lost in thought. Not seeing Timmy doesn’t seem to help, in fact it makes him ache more, so he sits back up and stares back at him through the phone.

Armie remembers the day he met him, how he wasn’t sure what to make of him, only that he was adorable and determined, dedicated. He still sees that guy in Timmy’s eyes, but he’s so much more now, so grown, not only in his own body but in his confidence, his heart.

_“I love you.”_

“I love you,” Armie says, his voice stronger than he thinks it’s been during the entire conversation. Something fleeting flickers over Timmy’s face, some sort of smile that Armie _needs_. He leans into the whole thing, sighing, and saying, “I fucking love you, Tim. I’ve needed this my whole life. Needed _you_.” And he means it, because the night covers him in certainty, the hour shielding him from shadowing doubt where the sunlight might expose it.

He wishes he could lay down with Timmy on his chest, but settles for both laying on their sides in their respective continents instead. If he tries, he can almost block out everything around him and pretend Timmy is actually here. _“So,god, Armie.”_ Armie is patient, waiting for him to formulate his thoughts. He could watch him think all day, the thoughts fluttering on his face in silence as he works through even mundane problems. _“What does all this mean? I love you, you love me. What do we do now?”_

For a moment, Armie continues smiling, his heart racing ahead to moving in together, Timmy asleep on his couch with his kids gathered around him. He sees them buying a house, attending premieres together, sees him kissing Timmy when he wins his first Oscar. He sees them on vacation and on beaches, in the Caymans where Armie would finally be able to press Timmy into his childhood memories. He sees late night phone calls when they’re both on location and skype dates and real dates and kissing and laughter and breakfast in bed and never worrying if Timmy is alone ever again and—

And he sees a messy divorce. He sees his children going home to home. He sees his family torn in two, so much love but so much ruined. He doesn’t know what Christmas looks like without Elizabeth’s family, he doesn’t know what day to day looks like either. He sees pain, he worries about resentment. He sees his family never speaking to him again, not only for who he is, but his choice to leave her.

He sees an apartment in LA and one in New York and neither ever feeling right because they kids would have three homes, four if he counts Dallas, five if he counts Denver. He sees their lives fractured, he sees Timmy wanting another kid, he sees marrying him and it not working _again_ , sees himself failing in another relationship, sees Timmy growing up because he may be a man, but he’s still the age Armie was when he was _so sure_ Elizabeth would be the only person he ever loved, and he knows he’s flawed, and he knows he and Timmy have something but he also _knows_ that’s not always enough. He sees them both filming, never seeing each other, finding comfort elsewhere when it starts to be too much five years down the line, ten, fifteen.

“Timmy—” he starts, wondering if he can suppress his thoughts. Not even the night can quiet him, though. “I don’t know,” he answers honestly. “I don’t know, _oh god.”_ His breathing comes quickly, his eyes welling up. He has to sit.

 _“What’s wrong?”_ he looks alarmed and it makes Armie feel guilty.

“Timmy,” he shakes his head. “We can’t do this,” he whispers, his eyes watering.

_“No—”_

“I can’t get a divorce, Timmy. It would be so messy—”

_“We’ll get through that—”_

“I need you to listen to me, _please_ ,” Armie begs. “Think about this for a second. Why didn’t you tell me you loved me if you’ve known for years? Were you afraid I wouldn’t love you back, because Jesus, Timmy. You had to at least suspect. It would have been a calculated risk, I know because I made that same calculation myself. And yet neither one of us ever said anything.”

_“I…”_

“Tim,” Armie says softly.

_“This isn’t fair. Love should count for something!”_

“It does,” Armie mumbles, wiping at his eyes. “But if love was all that mattered… Timmy if love was all that mattered, my marriage would be very different.”

_“But—”_

“Think about this. For just a minute. Timmy, what happens in a year, in two years? What happens in ten years when we barely see each other because of work and the kids are rebelling and Elizabeth is the one who gets to decide how they’re disciplined because she’ll have full custody?” He’s rambling, but the words are all jumbled in his mind. He can see Timmy breaking, and he hates it. But he knows he has to make him see what he’s seeing. “I love you, Timmy. But this was never going to work.” He watches as Timmy’s face shifts from pain to frustration, to anger. He glares at Armie through the phone, his jaw clenched.

_“Then why the fuck did you text me tonight?”_

“I don’t know,” Armie sighs. “I guess I just… I wanted to be honest.”

_“Well good for you, finally being honest for once in your goddamn life.”_

“Timmy—”

_“No! Are you serious right now? You tell me all of this only to just, what? Take it away?”_

“I didn’t… Fuck, Timmy! I don’t know, I’m sorry!”

_“You’re ruining this, you know that right? You’ve just lost me.”_

“Tim!” Armie cries, his voice shattering with his heart.

 _“You want honesty? You’re an asshole.”_ Armie can barely breathe, too afraid of what he’s just done. _“What did you really think was going to happen when you told me you loved me?”_

“I don’t know,” Armie whispers, his voice shaking. “Not this.”

 _“Why would you tell me you love me if you don’t want to be with me?”_ Armie’s heart breaks again at the sound of distress in his voice, knowing he put it there and can’t realistically do anything to take it away.

“Because I _do_ love you,” Armie whispers. “I know, okay, I know this is bad, I know I should have thought it through, but I missed you so fucking much and I just wanted some part of you to see me tonight. I’m so sorry,” he says. “I don’t know what my life is without you in it.”

 _“Yet you don’t want a life_ with _me?”_

“It’s complicated,” Armie groans. “I’m not ready for any of this,” he says, opting for honesty despite it being what got them into this mess. “I thought if I could just say it, just once… I don’t know. I mean, you know don’t you? Holding that in, it eats away at you. And it felt so damn good to just be honest with you and I got carried away…”

 _“Did you mean it?”_ Timmy asks quietly.

“Yes,” Armie whispers.

 _“Are you ever going to be ready?”_ Timmy’s voice breaks, sending aches through Armie’s body. He watches his lip quiver and wishes desperately to make it stop.

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I don’t know if this is something you’re just, _ready_ for.”

 _“I am,”_ Timmy says softly.

“Are you? You’re in a relationship, Timmy. You do know what this does, right?” Armie takes a deep breath. “It’s not just my life, Tim. Your life will be turned upside down.”

_“I’m not afraid of being outted—”_

“I’m not talking about that,” Armie shakes his head. “Two relationships ended. My family separated. Your career is just starting, I’m speaking from experience when I say you don’t want to mess up right now.”

 _“THIS is not a mess up!”_ Armie can see how much this means to him in the way he holds his ground. It means a lot to him as well, but he can’t seem to justify this. He hates himself for not feeling like he can make it work. _“And don’t you dare give me some bullshit about an affair narrative. I don’t fucking care.”_

“That’s just it, Timmy. You don’t care what this will do to you.”

 _“Why can’t you just let yourself be happy?”_ Timmy asks, his voice breaking.

“I don’t know,” Armie shakes his head. He feels defeated in the worst way, every emotion exposed, the frayed wires of his heart out.

 _“There comes a point where this isn’t worth it,”_ Timmy whispers after a minute. _“And I’m not talking about right now, Armie. There’s going to be a day when fighting for some part of you is not worth the pain you’re causing me.”_

“I know,” Armie breathes, his breath shuddering in and out of his lungs.

 _“When that day comes, I will not hesitate, Armie. I_ will _walk away.”_ Armie swallows hard and nods, knowing if he were to try to talk he’d just cry. “ _I just hope some part of our friendship survives.”_

“Timmy,” Armie sighs. His mind goes blank, words dying on his tongue. He stares at him through the phone and wishes he could take it back, erase everything and get them back to normal. Even if normal meant not being honest, not putting it all out there and knowing once and for all that this means something more than they’ve let the world believe.

 _“I’m going to go. I think we both need some time to process,”_ Timmy says, his eyes dropping from Armie’s.

“Tim—”

 _“Goodbye, Armie,_ ” he says, the line going dead. Armie just stares at his phone for awhile, dread surrounding him.

When he’s able, he stands and goes upstairs to the bathroom by their guest room, locks the door, and sinks to the floor. He stares at the sink for what feels like hours before taking his phone back out of his pocket, fingers tapping out a short text he knows may not do a thing, hits send, and goes to lay down in bed over the covers.

 

_9:50pm MST / 5:50am CET_

_AH: I’m sorry._

 

-TIMMY-

 

The peace in Armie’s smile could end every war on earth.

Then, while Timmy watches, it all wordlessly crashes to the ground.

“Timmy--” is the first thing he says, and Timmy knows he’s fucked as soon as Armie says it. It’s not his tone when he gushes to reporters or teases Timmy about flying; it’s not even the tone of a few minutes ago when he’d given Timmy more hope than he’d ever felt in his life. It’s the tone Armie uses when he’s bargaining, when he’s telling Timmy they can’t be together right then for this reason or that reason, _please accept this weekend instead. We’ll take a boys’ trip to Canada once the kids are back in school._ “I don’t know, oh god--”

Armie sits up, rubs the back of his neck with his hand. If a moment ago it felt like Timmy could reach out to touch Armie on the other side of the bed, now it feels as if there’s even more than an ocean between them. Because Timmy _does_ know, knows even more now that he’s watching Armie doubt, and seeing how far away that feels from the rock that’s settled in his stomach. A moment ago that weight felt like certainty; now it feels like a burden to bear.

So Timmy does what he can. He tries to meet every doubt of Armie’s, swerves to try and get ahead, cut him off, anticipate his doubts so he can try and surprise Armie with the clarity that he needs. But he’s running on foot, always out of breath, and Armie seems to be two steps ahead of him, moving faster, on a bike perhaps, on a road that stretches endlessly away from Timmy under an Italian sun.

“I can’t get a divorce…”

“We’ll get through that!”

“Why didn’t you tell me you’ve loved me if you’ve known me for years?”

“Love should count for something!” Timmy hears his voice go high and pleading at the end of this last sentence, and he knows it’s over, knows Armie will go distant at the first hint that there is _need_ at the root of anyone’s desire for him.

“Timmy, if love was all that mattered my marriage would be very different.”

 _You can say that again_ , Timmy thinks, realizing too late that his anger will show on his face just like all of his other emotions. The irony of Armie falling in love with the same emotional openness that’s now working against him isn’t lost on Timmy, and he glares into the screen before he realizes that’s only likely to push Armie further away. “Then why the fuck did you text me tonight?” Timmy asks in frustration, figuring that if he can’t have love he might as well have answers.

“I don’t know...I guess I just...I wanted to be honest.”

It’s all Timmy can do not to throw the phone onto the balcony and let it get covered in snow. _This is probably your idea of altruism, giving people the truth but only when you’re ready to tell it, never mind if it’s a good time for them to hear it_ , Timmy thinks. _God, maybe it’s better that things happened this way. What if we’d given this a try, maybe even for years, before I realized I was only getting Armie when he wanted to give himself to me, that he’d convince even himself he was being honest until the moment when something shocked him into shifting that mask he clearly wears even with people he loves._

This is what Timmy thinks, but all he says is, “You’re ruining this, you know that, right? You’ve just lost me.”  As soon as he says it he knows it’s just as true as everything else he’s said that night. The weight in his stomach grows heavier, and colder.

Armie stammers, starts to backtrack, in the way Timmy’s seen him do with family members when he’s trying to make amends. It breaks Timmy’s heart a little more to see Armie making him the object of those pleas for the first time. “I know this is bad. I missed you so fucking much and I just wanted some part of you to see me tonight...Holding that in, it eats at you.” _Yes it fucking does,_ Timmy thinks, and doesn’t even bother wondering how his bitter smile looks to Armie through the phone.

Yet somehow there’s still one thing that matters, as Timmy stares at Armie’s face contorting through confusion and hurt and an occasional flash of what Timmy hopes, and hates hoping, is still love. Something that will tell him whether this weight in his stomach, which will always be for Armie, will ever warm him with love again or just be a dead, silent thing that he carries and can tell no one about because almost no one has what they have had, and the lucky few who do are never foolish enough to lose it. “Did you mean it?” Timmy whispers, surprised to find the pleading note now gone. This is too important a question to hope he can change its answer with his voice.

When Armie whispers, “yes,” the tiniest spark blooms in Timmy’s chest. Not the fire that’s made him bow in public to Armie on red carpets or make jokes on television just so he could touch Armie’s chest at a time when Armie wouldn’t dare bat his hand away, but a spark. A spark that could keep embers alive in his heart until Armie realizes how it could feel to be this honest, this open, always.

“Are you ever going to be ready?” Timmy asks, and hates himself for not caring as much about Armie’s answer. Hates himself for even thinking of waiting, letting other relationships fizzle or wither, as long as Armie means what he said earlier that night.

“I don’t know if this is something you’re just _ready_ for…”

At that Timmy’s frustration explodes: the thought of the years ahead that could have been filled with vacations, the kids, meeting other couples, working together again perhaps, making a hundred beautiful new things in the world, and that now will be spent _waiting_ , in silence because what’s said tonight is all that needs to be said, pretending to be friends, until Armie finds his way back to this place where they already stand right now. “I’m not afraid of being outed...I don’t fucking care...Why can’t you just let yourself be happy?”

“I don’t know,” Armie says, his voice drained and his face flat and devoid of all emotion from earlier in the evening. He sounds almost robotic with exhaustion and Timmy himself suddenly realizes he’s been awake since five a.m. without so much as a film set to go to and distract himself. His bones ache from the chill in the air. So he tells the truth. Maybe seeing some more examples will give Armie inspiration, though at this point the last thing Timmy will allow himself is hope.

“There’s going to be a day when fighting for some part of you is not worth the pain you’re causing me...When that day comes I will not hesitate, Armie. I will walk away. I just hope some part of our friendship survives.” On the telephone screen, Armie swallows nervously. There’s emotion on his face again but it’s nothing but pain and a deep, deep sadness.

“I’m going to go,” Timmy murmurs, trying not to think of how he stuttered almost those exact words at Armie in a plaza in Crema, revealing more of himself in that scene than any other, laying out his tendency to stutter and get manic when he loved someone. Trying not to think of how he was only able to do that then because he knew that seconds later Armie would ask him to stay, tell him how happy he was that Timmy had come. “I think we both need some time to process. Goodbye, Armie,” he says over Armie’s faint protests, and disconnects the call.

He stays on his back in bed for a long time before sleep returns, finally throwing an arm over his eyes to block out the sun and huddling under the comforter rather than getting up to close the window. The ancient radiator bangs to life with rhythmic clangs that usually keep Timmy awake but today provide a soothing rhythm that finally allows him to fall back asleep.

 

Some time later Timmy’s phone buzzes beside him, notification light blinking insistently. This time, though, it doesn’t wake him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oops


End file.
